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The
new hospitals and research buildings rising over the newly renamed Wexner Medical Center at Ohio
State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital campuses are more than massive steel and
concrete structures.

They are job creators.

These projects, together valued at $1.94 billion and covering 3.5 million square feet of
hospital and research space, are expected to create 8,400 permanent, full-time jobs.

And these jobs, in turn, will create the need for at least 10,000 more people working for
companies that support the two hospitals or benefit from increased spending in the community, said
a local economist.

Some examples include new hires at medical-supply companies to support the increased activities
at the hospitals, plus jobs at nearby car dealerships, grocery stores, dry cleaners and all the
other businesses that the new hospital employees will frequent.

“When we create 100 jobs in health care, we can expect another 126 other jobs in the area,” said
Bill LaFayette, owner of the Columbus firm Regionomics. “The multiplier is even better on the
research side, and every 100 jobs will create another 190 jobs.”

Children’s already has hired 1,500 employees in anticipation of the official opening of its new
main hospital in June, and a research building soon after. Some floors of the hospital already are
open.

The new hires include 305 physicians and 256 nurses, and plans call for another 800 to 900 over
the next three years to “stock” the $840 million expansion, hospital officials said.

Ohio State’s Cancer & Critical Care Tower is scheduled to open in 2014 — and the university’s
medical center will hire about 6,000 people to staff the $1.1 billion, 20-story building.

The tower’s construction site is buzzing with activity as cranes hoist steel girders and workers
pour concrete.

“When I look at this building, I see an opportunity to impact the lives of thousands of people
who have cancer and are critically ill,” said David Schuller, a physician and vice president of the
OSU Medical Center Expansion and Outreach.

The actual construction of the new medical center at OSU also is creating jobs, about 240 a day
currently and 500 to 600 as “we get higher and have even more activity,” said Bill Huber, senior
project superintendent for Turner Land Lease, the site’s general contractor.

About 2,500 construction workers “will touch this job,” he added.

Both hospitals will increase the number of patient beds, which is expected to lead to more
out-of-town patients.

“These folks will be bringing in dollars from outside the area, and they have trailing family
members who don’t feel like tourists but behave like tourists,” LaFayette said.

These friends and family members of patients will eat at restaurants, shop at businesses and
stay in hotels.

“Bringing in outside money is the only way we will grow,” LaFayette said.

The new medical towers also are helping both institutions attract top-notch talent to central
Ohio.

“Our national reputation is growing, and this will enhance our reputation and our ability to
recruit and hire the best and brightest,” said Tim Robinson, Children’s chief financial
officer.

An example is Richard Kirschner, Children’s chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery and
director of the Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Center. He came from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia,
considered one of the top children’s hospitals in the country.

“When I first got the letter from the recruiter, I tossed it out,” Kirschner said.

He later fished it out of the trash.

“At first I didn’t know anything about Nationwide Children’s and didn’t think there was any
reason for me to come to Columbus,” Kirschner said. “But the more I looked, I realized they had
some pretty unique things going on here.”

The lure of the opportunity to create his vision of a world-class pediatric plastic surgery
center that would include research, patient care, teaching and international outreach was too good
to pass up — and Kirschner came to Children’s in March 2010.

“When I presented my dream to them, they said: ‘We have the resources, come here and do it,’ ”
he said.

While the opening of Ohio State’s Cancer & Critical Care Tower is still three years away,
the recruitment of new hires has begun, said Gail Marsh, the hospital’s chief strategy officer.

“A lot of the positions we’re planning to fill are for physicians, and you don’t just bring them
in the day the new building opens,” she said. “We have to recruit them over time, and the three
areas we’re looking at are cancer, critical care and imaging.”

About 24 percent of the new hires will be physicians and researchers; another 27 percent will be
nurses and allied health professionals.

Recently, Marsh donned a hard hat and took her first tour of the new tower.

“I was at the very first meeting to talk about building this,” she said. “And now, to see it, is
so compelling.”